The China Project

95 Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection XU Bing [Between 1985 and 1990,] a group of over 1000 young Chinese artists living in an environment without galleries, museums, or any systematic support for art and with unprecedented enthusiasm and passion, led a fundamentally influential artistic movement . . . They braved the dangers of being fired from their jobs, disciplinary sanction or even being placed on a blacklist, entirely for the purpose of realising works incomprehensible to the vast majority of people, or to participate in exhibitions that might be shut down at any minute by the authorities. 1 Xu Bing’s monumental installation A book from the sky 1987–91 (also known as Tian shu in Chinese) is a seminal work from this period. It took him five years to create, although versions of it were exhibited before its completion in 1991. The installation is composed of reams of paper draped as a series of vast scrolls from the ceiling, a suite of traditionally bound books placed in a grid on the floor, and the wooden cases that house each of the books. The scrolls and books are printed with thousands of characters — Xu Bing, who trained as a printmaker, meticulously carved approximately 4000 characters, and each of these in reverse so that their correct appearance is only revealed once printed. The paradox of this epic work lies in the fact that none of the characters are true, or readable, although they appear to be just that. Interpreted as an audacious and subversive statement, this work captured the ambition and courage that characterised contemporary Chinese art of the period, up-ending ideas of sense and non-sense, and toying with the eminent placement of high art as it has existed within the traditions of calligraphy, in which art and text are one. When a version was first exhibited in October 1988 at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, A book from the sky was considered provocative by the Chinese government while lauded as a definitive work, and received public attention both nationally and internationally. Xu Bing left China for New York at this time and only returned to Beijing in 2007. Xu Bing has commented on the work’s relationship to ‘truth’ and ‘words’, saying that ‘within this piece there are many contradictions. For example, some people say that it’s an anti-cultural work. Yet in the display . . . there is a reverence and respect for culture’. 2 Academic and author Souchou Yao writes: turning (back) to the fidelity of form gives Chinese calligraphy new life. All too aware of the repressive horrors which Chinese classical culture often represented, Xu Bing’s move has been to enact the dialectic promise of text. And this enactment takes Chinese viewers back to the first moment of (self)discovery: the tedium and delight of writing, the discipline and reward of mastering the ‘art of text’ ( shu fa ) and, imperceptibly, the emergence of a sensibility in which words and texts assume a primary importance. 3 Made over the period of the birth of contemporary Chinese art, Xu Bing’s A book from the sky continues to grow in significance with time, drawing from China’s long and important literati cultural history, as well as its contemporary daring and impudent intellectual energy. endnotes 1 Fei Dawei, ‘The ’85 New Wave: A fleeting derailment’ in 85 New Wave: The Birth of Chinese Contemporary Art [exhibition catalogue], Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2007, p.11. 2 Xu Bing, quoted in Jonathan Goodman, ‘Xu Bing: The cage of words’, Art Asia Pacific , issue 26, 2000, p.49. 3 Souchou Yao, ‘Xu Bing – Frighten Heaven and make the spirits cry’ in Beyond the Future: The Third Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art [exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1999, p.230. above A book from the sky (detail) 1987–91 opposite A book from the sky (installation view) 1987–91 Woodblock print, wood, leather, ivory / 4 banners: 103 x 6 x 8.5cm (each, folded); 19 boxes: 49.2 x 33.5 x 9.8cm (each, containing 4 books) / The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased 1994 with funds from the International Exhibitions Program and with the assistance of The Myer Foundation and Michael Simcha Baevski through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation